remember me to Herald Square,
Tell all the gang at Forty-Second Street,
that I will soon be there;
Over the years my husband and I have attended most of the well-known Boardway shows such as Phantom of the Opera, Cats, 42nd Street, Miss Saigon and many others. One side of the wall in our basement are displays of the playbills and ticket stubs from the shows we saw in New York, Chicago, St. Louis and London, England. The first time when my husband came to New York to visit me in 1988, we saw an off-Broadway show called "Nunsense". Either we did not have any money to pay for tickets to a Broadway show or we could not get tickets since we did not plan in advance. Subsequently we managed to see at least one show each time we came to New York. We remember fondly the time when we just walked up to the window at the Imperial Theatre and asked if there were any tickets for Les Miserables that afternoon. We were surprised that not only there were tickets available but at reasonable price. We were more surprised when we were shown to the box seats next to the stage. What a pleasant treat!
The same happened when we purchased tickets to see Miss Saigon at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago. Again, it was a suprised treat when we were led by the usher to the second box seats to the right of the stage. It was extra special watching the scene when the helicopter landed on the roof of the U.S. Embassy to provide airlift to all the poor Vietnamese before the Fall of Saigon in April 1975. (Of course, there were no candy thrown down to the audience - hah - please see the entry "First Love" for this inside joke.) Miss Saigon was a typical love story of an European man and an Asian woman whose sole purpose in life was waiting to be rescued by the white knight and in the end willingly give up her life as proof of her undying love. After the show, as we were leaving the theater, my husband said something that was so funny causing me to laugh outloud. It was comical that I, an Asian woman laughing, unmoved by the sad love story while a couple of Caucasian women wiping away their tears.
Did you ever see two Yankees part upon a foreign shoreWhen the good ship is just about to start for Old New York once more?
We were the two Yankees on foreign shore when we attended the show "Whistle Down the Wind" at the Aldwych Theatre in London, England. It was interesting to listen to British actors trying to speak English with a southern accent since the characters were based on a story in Louisiana. The mask below (left corner) was purchased after we saw the Lion King at Fox Theatre in St. Louis. We also saw the show Chicago in St. Louis. I said to my husband that our next trip to Chicago in addition to a hockey game between the Chicago Blackhawks and the other Original Six, we should also see the show Chicago as it is only fitting to see Chicago in Chicago!
Most of the shows we saw were at Fox Theatre in midtown St. Louis. It is a beautiful theater and a lot of efforts were put into the renovation. Somehow it does not create the same feeling for me compared to the theaters in New York City. We paid $75 per ticket for The Producers and our seats were second row from the back. I was so upset and my husband still teased me about my reaction and comment to the usher, "These are lousy seats for the amount of money we paid for the tickets". We almost got thrown out for disrupting the performance - just kidding!
Whisper of how I'm yearning to mingle with the old time throng;
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